Prediction: Tottenham vs Queens Park Rangers

29th October 2011

Tottenham could climb to third place if they beat Queens Park Rangers and with that in mind they should need no further incentive to give their best in this clash. Rangers climbed to the top half of the table thanks to the shock victory over Chelsea and are now hoping to produce another upset against their London rivals.

Tottenham have done extremely well to recover from back to back defeats against Manchester rivals, especially as the 5:1 home defeat to City was expected to leave the team in big problems. However, Spurs showed a real character by responding to the major setback with an impressive away win over Wolverhampton and they have been in remarkable form ever since. Harry Redknapp’s side not only managed to beat both Liverpool and Arsenal at White Hart Lane, but they showed a massive improvement in their away form as well, bringing maximum points from DW Stadium and Ewood Park. Everybody now agrees that new signings Scott Parker and Emmanuel Adebayor were the main reasons behind the latest uptrend in fortunes, although players like Van der Vaart, Modric and Bale have also played their part. Being just three points behind third-placed Chelsea and with two games in hand, Tottenham can really boost their top 4 hopes with a win over QPR, so there are no doubts Spurs will attack their opponents from the off. The absence of Tom Huddlestone, Michael Dawson and Ledley King is old news, but William Gallas and Steven Pienaar could return.

Queens Park Rangers entered the new season completely unprepared for what awaited them in England’s top flight, with heavy defeats to Bolton and Wigan hinting that the Rs could be in for a straight return to the Championship. Nevertheless, the squad was significantly reinforce in the dying moments of the summer transfer window, with experienced Premiership players like Barton, Young, Traore, Wright-Phillips and Ferdinand making the team much more competitive. Neil Warnock’s side have since picked up 9 points from 6 games, which is a great return for a newly promoted side. QPR enter this game on the back of the 1:0 win over Chelsea, which, regardless of how it was achieved, will undoubtedly serve as big confidence boost. However, while Rangers have enough attacking potential to hurt Tottenham’s weakened back line, their own defence looks pretty shaky at the moment, as witnessed by the fact that they largely struggled not to conceded against nine-man Chelsea.

Conclusion

Tottenham are scoring goals for fun at the moment and everything suggests the good run will continue against QPR. Rangers could take advantage of the space Tottenham will certainly be leaving behind, but there’s no way their shaky back line will be able to stop the hosts from scoring a couple of goals at their Lane. Therefore, I see a good value in betting on over 3.5 goals.

Verdict: Over 3.5 goals

Best Odds: 13/8

Bookmaker: William Hill